By Rick Bhattacharyya
A black flame over the buildings. Walking corpses all around. An endless darkness that stretches beyond the naked eye’s range. And three simple words, coming from there:
“Come to me.”
Fides’s light krest and Loikrer’s healing krest weren’t working here. Our robes weren’t damaged, but since they gave us extra stamina and once in a while, sight, we had to protect it at all costs. These corpses and those few monster hordes were posing to be a nuisance. Continuously spewing miasma and shooting medium-value dark Solas were from their mouths and palms were definitely something we were not used to, but with my shield we could just sit around and defend against them. The miasma was trying to take hold of our consciousness and thoughts; trying to make us vulnerable for an easy takeover, so it’d be best if we could leave as early as possible. But we had to find her. She’s an integral part of my life and this plan. Besides, we cannot open the △△△△ without her. Just those thoughts would not let me be at peace.
I cast a reciprocal barrier over the three of us, and we kept moving towards that void.
“Hey Krael,” I called out in my mind.
No answer,
“Oi girly, you there or not?”
“Ah…hello. What’s up,” she answered, in a tone suggesting she’d fallen asleep.
“Are you sure this is the right way?”
“It is…probably.”
I sighed. We did not have any other option anyway but to move on.
“However,” she continued, “what can also be suspected is the fact that she’s not here. My reasoning is based over the type of environment in here in contrast to how she is. A hyperactive sunshine-like lady could not survive in a place like this. She would definitely not like this type of environment.” Which was pretty much true. Given her nature, she would despise places like these because she cannot not remove the darkness from places as these and hence would like to completely either obliterate them, or seal them.
The next step I took was when all hell broke loose. The moment I placed my foot on the ground, all the solas stopped coming. None of them moved. It was an eerie feeling.
Suddenly, the corpses started running into each other and began melting. The monsters started eating each other and looked like they were gaining weight, as well as getting bigger. Meanwhile, a ball the volume of a lake, of dark light and miasma – the solas, was forming above them. The situation wasn’t good; we could go down without any success.
“Fides! Lorkrer! Stay close to me!” I yelled at them. The two huddled towards me, and I started double incantations i.e., casting two spells at once; one to cast a triple barrier and the other one to launch a counter explosion. This was much easier before, but having not done this for so long it made me a little nauseated. If only she’d been with me…
“No, I can’t let myself be consumed,” I thought to myself. The monsters had almost finished combining and so had the corpses. What could become worse was the fact that both of them combined to become an unnatural calamity for everyone; one which could escape these Jaws of Hades and wreak havoc not just on the surface world, but also in the other worlds.
A solas was fired at extreme intensity.
“KRAEL!”
“On it,” she replied calmly.
My body started invigorating and my robe’s color changed from a deep purple to an off-white to give me an extra strength boost. Using Krael’s ability, I could freely call forth from any dimension a weapon of mine, and as per requirement, instantaneously convert it to a weapon of my choice. I had to call out two keywords, one being the dimension cutter:
“Cosmopolitan redundancy.”
Which cut open the space to reveal a reddish-blue place.
The solas hit my shield straight-on, making even me step back a little. While holding on to the shield, the counter and this space, I quickly indicated to Fides for backup and she started singing, which charged up the counter. I put my hand through the space and pulled out a katana – the best that I could’ve hoped for. I thought of converting it to a spear by calling the second keyword, “Change,” but there was no need. The solas hadn’t lost any strength and kept trying to push me back. If I lost any strength, it would explode right at our faces and vaporize us. Lorkrer did not have much of an attacking stead, but he put his right palm on my back, and muttered, “Shock.”
A simple word, and electricity coursed through my arms, making me feel more invincible than I already was. I was ready to beat the shit out of all our opponents. The counter was fully charged up. My body was screaming to release all the power generated.
“Overbod,” I said, casting an individual shield over the two of them and then screamed, “MOVE OUT OF THE WAY.”
I let go of the triple barrier and those two ran at sound speed to the opposite sides of the giant corpse and the giant monster accumulations. With some distance in front of me, I pointed my katana at the miasma ball, and with an uppercut motion, cut straight through it. Within a second, the cut caused the ball to create some space and then exploded like those big war explosions with a huge smoke.
My work wasn’t done yet. Taking advantage of this momentary distraction, I sprinted at my top speed towards those giants and jumped straight above them with force large enough to break the ground beneath. Looking down, I saw them both looking bewildered. The counter was cackling with the extra electricity that was going through my body to it. With a smirk, I released the counter.
“Nuclear clarification.”
=======x======x======x======x======x======x======x======x=======x
Chapter 1 – Waking up
"It's time."
A voice echoed in my head.
I found myself lying down in an open field, my eyes towards the starry sky, taking in the fact that somebody had just jumpstarted my life after an unknown amount of time. It wasn’t a good feeling, especially since I couldn’t feel around myself much. Would the world have been better without our interference? There’s no way to know. We did what we thought would be best for them, but the outcome turned out to be worse than we expected. Thinking back on how these little humans changed, the changes they’d brought with them because of their idealistic thoughts and approaches, it was pretty infuriating. That has led me to take the decision - their destruction, and the demolishing of all dimensions consisting of humans.
Different types of humans have long been living in many dimensions for quite a long time, and I have been alive since a little after the dimensions were created, though some of them were well ahead than the others. They aren’t as sophisticated a bunch compared to my pal Fides. She just had complete and good faith in the six of us, and also trusted everyone she would talk to. It wasn’t a very good habit because somebody or the other would try to take advantage of her good nature; but who were we to tell her.
I have seen humans in a couple of them, progress from being savages to a sophisticated species. I have seen them from living in forests to what they now call 'Apartments' and 'Homes'. I haven't seen what changes have come in the time I was sealed away in. But it's time, to obliterate all of them regardless of how they've changed. It does come true when one says that even a small change can amount to a big difference, but everyone in the end does not contribute to the same.
Greed is the one thing which can be associated with almost every human.
A want of maybe one single thing, or multiple things.
It would be wrong to say that there are no humans who think of others, but there are just so few of them that it doesn't make sense to me for them to be so easily be accepted by others; and even if they do get accepted, each and every one of them meets their fate, be it positive or negative.
Differences amongst these humans are created over time. There are castes, rankings, and abilities, and whatnot amongst them. Heck the rulers even create wars and have people participate in them for a reason as stupid as ‘increasing their area of ruling’.
The kings, or the leaders, or the bosses; they do not all take care of the civilians and citizens residing in their domains, despite assuring them that they'll all be safe and the country will negotiate with the attacker to minimise the damage. They enjoy the killing sprees they go on, and perchance they stumble upon something of extreme value, they decide it’s theirs to keep.
It's sad to see how we people used to think highly of the humans. We were the ones who used to help them out at times of need, and they were the ones who outwitted us, and sealed us away. Just somehow unbeknownst to them, I broke free after an unknown amount of time.
I had visions of the progress humans were making in the time I was cast in an eternal sleep period, which I was able to break through by my own mental state. They stopped after quite some time, but the time till then was saddening enough to partially awaken me, and then fully, through some help.
------------------x---------------------x----------------------x----------------------x-----------------
"Yes," I thought.
I tried to get up, but couldn't. A really long time had passed if I still couldn't manage to even get up from my rest state. My body was stiff from all the time I had been sealed so I believe it was understandable that my body was unable to work properly. Plus, I wasn’t in my actual body and state; this was a reduced state caused because of such a long hibernation. Though, it did feel like the amount of gravity here was a little lesser than what it had been, in the world I was, before getting sealed. Maybe I got transported during that time. To regain my complete powers and actual body, I’d probably have to travel around a lot.
Besides, I had to find out what happened to Lorkrer. He definitely wouldn’t have got caught up in all of this. I had to find him the first.
I decided to try out something as a trial to get up, and that will also tell me how much of my previous power I've regained. I closed my eyes, spread my arms and legs out, and thought of creating a small circular area which will get impacted.
And then came the moment of truth.
My eyes snapped open.
Three streaks of light up in the starry sky, following which came down upon me golden-white light, impacting the field around me to an unexpected extent. The energy from that streak of light flowed through me, making me float up in the air. The earth shook, shattering the ground around me on which the light fell head-on.
Then it was gone, splattering white petals so beautiful you would want to make braids or crowns out of them. Finally, the ordeal was done and I kept standing, taking in all of the power I had lost over such a long time. The area had completely burned with white smoke rose from the shattered area, and my waking up place looked like a graveyard.
There was a little aftereffect of the light falling on me, and my body glowed, along with being a little hot. I made up my mind to go visit the others who were sealed before me, and then together, decide on everything on moving ahead from this point onwards.
"Krael, are you there?" I thought to myself.
Half a minute passed. No response.
"Krael, can you hear me?" I thought again.
Still no response.
I sighed. Krael was a being that I had created, to tend to the needs of all my fellow friends whenever I was busy or inaccessible. She probably went into her static mode once I started losing consciousness and fell asleep in my sealed state. I recall talking to her almost all the time I was away. She used to show me the visions of what was happening in all the worlds, and would joke at times so as to keep me happy in what I thought were my last moments.
She did not spend the time I was sealed away in to tend to others, but stayed by my side.
So, as her creator, it was my duty to awaken her.
This time, I’d wake her up and find the others.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Let the final countdown, begin.
----------x----------x----------x----------
I put up my palm, and on came a screen, blurry, and glitching possibly because of a very different timeline, since this never used to happen. I had regained a fraction of my power, which while wasn’t enough to begin destruction, it was workable. I further went on to locate my homeland, marked it, and got ready to move there.
Standing upright, I pushed myself into the ground, and with one rough push went straight up in the air, shattering the ground beneath. Upon reaching a decent height, I turned to look at where I’d woken up.
The stage where I regained my powers looked as if a crater had fallen on it. The rest looked like the outskirts of the ‘so-called’ areas these humans were reigning over, so it probably meant no human was harmed in my awakening. A bit sad, but well, there’s a lot to do.
And I have time.
This time, there would be no scope of saving.
Revenge and destruction, will now begin.
By Rick Bhattacharyya
Comments